A bend in the road - Vol 1

3. Of rainy nights

She couldn’t sleep that night.

As was the case last night.

She tossed and turned for a long time before muttering a curse and going to the balcony.

Sitting on the cold marble floor, she pulled her knees to her chest and plugged in earphones that Pinky gifted her, and started listening to one of the old melodies.

She had crossed all the limits last night.

She could still live with all the embarrassment she caused herself and her boss when they went to the party Mr. Chopra invited them to, but not what happened afterwards.

Mr. Chopra, the new client of Khurana constructions was mightily impressed by their offering and closed the deal instantly and invited Maan Sir to a party in a short notice, and insisted that she, Geet should accompany him.

It was a sore point to Maan Sir of course, she could say. Maan Sir though hated her presence, and hated everything that is her, still somehow managed to be gentleman enough to give her due credit to the inputs she had given in the presentation he had made, and Mr. Chopra, being the happy Santa Claus he was, pressed Geet be there in the project therefore, and insisted she come to the party with Maan Sir.

Geet sighed as she played an old melody of A.R. Rahman.

Maybe she shouldn’t have gone at the first place. Her presence hadn’t helped the evening a bit. First, she embarrassed herself and Maan Sir as a manager there asked her to leave, with the amazing etiquette she exhibited there.

Maan Sir, who had lost his cool for having his employee treated such walked out of there himself, pulling her along.

Really, that man has a strange sense of gentlemanliness. He can insult her to the moon and back, but won’t let anybody else do that. Geet really didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the turn of events.

The evening turned quite eventful when her stomach grumbled loudly and they ended up stopping at a roadside Dhaba and her Hoshiyarpur blood that’s running inside her rejoiced at the familiar setting and amazing food and she let her guard down. She ate, danced with Maan Sir, and surprisingly had a great time.

However, things changed drastically after that.

A memory from her past came back as she let the first drop of rains touch her.

In a night similar to this, had she let somebody touch her, somebody come close to her intimately. She remembered how naively had she trusted a man and had let him make love to her, on the pretext of her marriage.

She felt disgusted at herself that she had trusted a man like that at the first place. Disgust came later, but at that moment in the rain, she had felt utterly helpless, and heart broken.

When she felt somebody’s hand touch her shoulder, she came out of her musings with a start and turned her startled teary eyes to find Maan Sir looking at her with an expression she would never forget.

His countenance changed from the intense look to concerned; at her tears. That concern had snapped something in her heart. With a sob, she broke down, throwing her arms around his waist and buried her face in his chest.

In introspection, she can state a million reasons why that was a bad idea. But at that moment, when she felt utterly alone, that look in Maan Sir’s eyes had conveyed a great deal to her. Somewhere she felt that if not to anybody it would matter to him; her tears.

In his embrace that she felt few moments after, she felt safe, and secure.

A thunder, pushed her back to her senses and she pushed him away and like a proverbial mouse, ran away.

That was a day before. Today morning she had been to office and felt queasy just at the thought of facing Maan Sir. Pinky came to her with a cheery grin and told her she had two good news lined up for her.

One was that Maan Sir suggested Geet also to be a part of Chopra project. She had to work closely with Rishi and his team for that, and they needed to go to Dehradun for that.

Geet felt genuinely happy for the first time in the day, for the fact that she was being given responsibilities beyond her qualification, just having trust placed on her calibre. Of course being sent to a place like Dehradun added to her spirits.

“What’s the second good news?” she asked all excited.

“Maan Sir is gone on office work to a place nobody knows. If we go with the predictions, he would be away for at least a week”

The smile on Geet’s lips faltered.

Why did that sound far from being a good news, god knows.